by Charli Carpenter | 14 Sep 2012 | Featured
An interesting observation I took away from this meeting is the frequency with which I heard practitioners talking about the need to "reverse the burden of proof" from advocates (to prove that a particular weapon causes significant humanitarian harm) to governments (to prove that it doesn't). As Richard Price documented in his study of the landmines campaign and John Borrie documented in his landmark genealogy of the cluster munitions...
by Charli Carpenter | 14 Sep 2012 | Featured
You never know what you'll learn when conducting field research. Refer playfully to a powerful and influential person in the humanitarian disarmament network as the "Jedi Master of arms advocacy" over dinner and drinks? Discover unexpectedly that this individual (who shall remain unnamed) has never seen Star Wars. The easy part: I know what to send him / her as a thank-you present for insights shared. The hard part: how to explain the...
by Dan Nexon | 13 Sep 2012 | Featured
Richard Grenell was pushed out as Mitt Romney's national-security spokesman. In The Daily Beast, he attempts to defend his former boss.Secretary of State Hillary Clinton got it right. The Middle East desk at the State Department got it right, too. And so did Mitt Romney. All three correctly rejected the initial Cairo Embassy statement on the developing violence in Egypt and Libya as weak and inappropriate. And yet Romney was the only one to...
by Dan Nexon | 13 Sep 2012 | Featured
This is a guest post by Peter S. Henne. Peter is a doctoral candidate at Georgetown University. He formerly worked as a national security consultant. His research focuses on terrorism and religious conflict; he has also written on the role of faith in US foreign policy. During 2012-2013 he will be a fellow at the Miller Center at the University of Virginia. Are some nations more real than others? Does it matter? Wednesday on MSNBC's 'Morning...
by Jon Western | 13 Sep 2012 | Featured
I don't really want to pile on, but the question for me is: how does a major presidential candidate in the 21st century (and a guy who has been running for office now for seven straight years) screw this up so badly? As a resident of Massachusetts, I watched Romney as governor, he wasn't a disaster and I don't think he ever displayed the level of incompetence that we've seen recently. So what's going on? I've been pondering this with various...
by PM | 13 Sep 2012 | Featured
This is actually a pretty good checklist.I'm busy with other projects--dissertating, researching, and watching Breaking Bad, in ascending order--but I wanted to point out that the problem with Mitt Romney's statement about the attacks on Americans in Libya and Egypt is not what it tells us about foreign policy. We know very little about Romney's foreign policy views, and it is possible that Romney himself hasn't thought deeply about the it....
by Dan Nexon | 13 Sep 2012 | Featured
Erik Erikson's full-throated attack on the US media and Obama is getting bounced around the right-wing twitter-verse today. For those of us who aren't part of that universe, it provides an interesting glimpse inside the bubble. It begins thus: Yesterday, as the American consulate in Libya was smoking and the rioters were returning in Egypt, the President of the United States flew off to Las Vegas for a fundraiser while his spokesman was...
by Dan Nexon | 13 Sep 2012 | Featured
South African miners call for general strike.Paul Rogers at the Agonist on "The Jihadist Element in Syria and its Implications."Karim Mezran & Danya Greenfield: "picking up the pieces and honoring Ambassador Stevens."Wow. As Josh wrote about, the backlash against Romney's comments on the consulate attacks has been.... intense.The Hillsborough coverup just exploded in British politics. Ashamed aside: I had no idea about any of this until...
by Charli Carpenter | 12 Sep 2012 | Featured
A heavily attended side-event today was the Norwegian Red Cross' panel discussion "Looking Back to Look Forward: The Cluster Munitions Convention and What it Means for Limiting the Impact of Other Weapons Systems."Richard Moyes, coordinator of the International Network Against Explosive Weapons, presented a compelling address about the importance of regulating the use of explosives in populated areas, and putting the burden of proof on states...
by Josh Busby | 12 Sep 2012 | Featured
U.S. Consulate in Benghazi 9/12/2012I heard Dan Drezner in the car on NPR yesterday talking about whether foreign policy might matter in this election. And, last night and today, with the events in Egypt and Libya, he may be more right than even he anticipated.We may have an incident, in the wake of the 11th anniversary of the 9-11 attacks, that will shape the contours of the election and have wider repercussions for U.S. foreign policy in the...
by Dan Nexon | 12 Sep 2012 | Featured
One of my daughter's favorite videos. I love that this song has evolved into a theme for general tolerance and... respect.
by Dan Nexon | 12 Sep 2012 | Featured
Note: this started out as "Morning Linkage" but quickly became an extended comment. I apologize for the poor proofing.Four Americans, including US ambassador Christopher Stevens, were killed in the extremist Islamist attack on the American consulate in Libya, Hayes Brown has a good, quick, overview of the circumstances surrounding the attacks in Libya and Egypt. As he concludes: Finally, the relationship between the United States and the...